Employment Equity: An Analysis of Distribution of Salary Ranges of Public Service of Canada Employees
Brittny Vongdara & Catalina Albury
01/24/2023
Introduction
Here we demonstrate the systemic career stagnation faced by Black employees in the public service. This data is based on self identification of equity-deserving groups, and represents pre-tax salary ranges excluding bonuses and promotions, publically availble here. Each data series from 2017 to 2021 represents the salaries of public servants (excluding the CRA) at a single time point, not reflecting changes across an entire year. The most recent data was collected in March of 2021. Please note that this data was imputed for suppressed numbers (for exact values, see here). Furthermore, Black employee data is contained within visible minority (VM) data. However, Indigenous data is not contained with the VM category, and are separately analyzed, due to data collection in accordance with the Employment Equity Act. For more information and to access the scripts used to produce this analysis, visit the project’s GitHub repository.
Understanding the Data - Disproportionality Index
In this analysis, Disproportionality Index (DI) is used as a measure
of equitable representation. It is calculated as below.
\[\frac{\%_{Group\: X; \:salary\: range \:
i}}{\% _{All \:Employees; \:salary\: range \: i}} = DI _{Group\:X;
\:salary\:range\:i}\]
For example, 23.73% of Black employees and 16.70% of all employees are within the <60K salary range. This gives us a DI of 1.42.
\[ DI_{Black \: employees; <60K } =\frac{23.51\%}{16.70\%} = 1.42\]
Summary Tables - Median Salary
Table 1: Estimated median salary of each group per year, rounded to the nearest $50. Orange values indicate a higher value than the “all employees” group, and blue values indicate a lower value per year.
Year | All Employees | Non-Visible Minority Employees | Visible Minority Employees | Black Employees | Indigenous Employees | Employees with Disabilities |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2021 | 79,900 | 80,450 | 77,100 | 71,150 | 77,450 | 77,050 |
2020 | 76,900 | 77,500 | 74,250 | 67,250 | 73,350 | 73,100 |
2019 | 75,750 | 76,200 | 73,650 | 67,450 | 72,400 | 72,700 |
2018 | 72,450 | 72,550 | 71,950 | 68,500 | 70,450 | 71,200 |
2017 | 69,550 | 69,600 | 69,250 | 65,450 | 67,250 | 67,800 |
Summary Tables - DI
Table 2: DI of each group per year.
DI (2021)
| All Employees | Black Employees | All Visible Minority Employees | Non-Visible Minority Employees | Indigenous Employees | Employees with Disabilities | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Salary Range | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI |
Less than $60,000 | 16.70 | 1 | 23.73 | 1.42 | 17.89 | 1.07 | 16.43 | 0.98 | 17.91 | 1.07 | 18.54 | 1.11 |
$60,000 to $69,999 | 17.56 | 1 | 23.86 | 1.36 | 19.67 | 1.12 | 17.06 | 0.97 | 18.61 | 1.06 | 19.31 | 1.10 |
$70,000 to $84,999 | 23.14 | 1 | 20.94 | 0.90 | 22.07 | 0.95 | 23.39 | 1.01 | 24.46 | 1.06 | 21.07 | 0.91 |
$85,000 to $99,999 | 19.30 | 1 | 15.72 | 0.81 | 18.68 | 0.97 | 19.45 | 1.01 | 21.97 | 1.14 | 19.19 | 0.99 |
Over $100,000K | 23.30 | 1 | 15.75 | 0.68 | 21.69 | 0.93 | 23.67 | 1.02 | 17.05 | 0.73 | 21.90 | 0.94 |
All ranges | 100.00 | 1 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 |
DI (2020)
| All Employees | Black Employees | All Visible Minority Employees | Non-Visible Minority Employees | Indigenous Employees | Employees with Disabilities | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Salary Range | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI |
Less than $60,000 | 23.82 | 1 | 34.75 | 1.46 | 25.61 | 1.08 | 23.43 | 0.98 | 26.57 | 1.12 | 26.85 | 1.13 |
$60,000 to $69,999 | 17.56 | 1 | 19.78 | 1.13 | 18.66 | 1.06 | 17.32 | 0.99 | 18.43 | 1.05 | 18.64 | 1.06 |
$70,000 to $84,999 | 19.84 | 1 | 16.32 | 0.82 | 18.55 | 0.93 | 20.11 | 1.01 | 22.93 | 1.16 | 17.39 | 0.88 |
$85,000 to $99,999 | 18.32 | 1 | 15.36 | 0.84 | 17.87 | 0.98 | 18.42 | 1.01 | 18.26 | 1.00 | 19.07 | 1.04 |
Over $100,000K | 20.47 | 1 | 13.79 | 0.67 | 19.31 | 0.94 | 20.72 | 1.01 | 13.80 | 0.67 | 18.05 | 0.88 |
All ranges | 100.00 | 1 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 |
DI (2019)
| All Employees | Black Employees | All Visible Minority Employees | Non-Visible Minority Employees | Indigenous Employees | Employees with Disabilities | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Salary Range | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI |
Less than $60,000 | 25.20 | 1 | 36.60 | 1.45 | 27.74 | 1.10 | 24.69 | 0.98 | 27.87 | 1.11 | 28.50 | 1.13 |
$60,000 to $69,999 | 17.13 | 1 | 17.66 | 1.03 | 17.51 | 1.02 | 17.06 | 1.00 | 18.47 | 1.08 | 17.30 | 1.01 |
$70,000 to $84,999 | 21.41 | 1 | 17.36 | 0.81 | 19.73 | 0.92 | 21.75 | 1.02 | 24.32 | 1.14 | 18.89 | 0.88 |
$85,000 to $99,999 | 17.96 | 1 | 16.28 | 0.91 | 17.72 | 0.99 | 18.01 | 1.00 | 17.33 | 0.96 | 18.56 | 1.03 |
Over $100,000K | 18.30 | 1 | 12.11 | 0.66 | 17.31 | 0.95 | 18.50 | 1.01 | 12.02 | 0.66 | 16.75 | 0.92 |
All ranges | 100.00 | 1 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 |
DI (2018)
| All Employees | Black Employees | All Visible Minority Employees | Non-Visible Minority Employees | Indigenous Employees | Employees with Disabilities | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Salary Range | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI |
Less than $60,000 | 25.87 | 1 | 34.69 | 1.34 | 28.09 | 1.09 | 25.45 | 0.98 | 28.69 | 1.11 | 28.80 | 1.11 |
$60,000 to $69,999 | 19.40 | 1 | 17.95 | 0.93 | 18.71 | 0.96 | 19.53 | 1.01 | 19.99 | 1.03 | 18.83 | 0.97 |
$70,000 to $84,999 | 19.94 | 1 | 18.56 | 0.93 | 18.62 | 0.93 | 20.18 | 1.01 | 23.68 | 1.19 | 18.46 | 0.93 |
$85,000 to $99,999 | 16.93 | 1 | 16.02 | 0.95 | 17.18 | 1.01 | 16.88 | 1.00 | 16.22 | 0.96 | 17.60 | 1.04 |
Over $100,000K | 17.87 | 1 | 12.78 | 0.72 | 17.40 | 0.97 | 17.95 | 1.00 | 11.42 | 0.64 | 16.31 | 0.91 |
All ranges | 100.00 | 1 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 |
DI (2017)
| All Employees | Black Employees | All Visible Minority Employees | Non-Visible Minority Employees | Indigenous Employees | Employees with Disabilities | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Salary Range | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI | Percent | DI |
Less than $55,000 | 23.74 | 1 | 31.81 | 1.34 | 25.42 | 1.07 | 23.44 | 0.99 | 27.36 | 1.15 | 27.22 | 1.15 |
$55,000 to $64,999 | 17.53 | 1 | 17.48 | 1.00 | 17.13 | 0.98 | 17.60 | 1.00 | 18.15 | 1.04 | 17.78 | 1.01 |
$65,000 to $79,999 | 22.66 | 1 | 20.43 | 0.90 | 21.09 | 0.93 | 22.94 | 1.01 | 25.91 | 1.14 | 19.57 | 0.86 |
$80,000 to $94,999 | 17.66 | 1 | 16.62 | 0.94 | 18.17 | 1.03 | 17.57 | 0.99 | 17.01 | 0.96 | 18.49 | 1.05 |
Over $95,000K | 18.42 | 1 | 13.66 | 0.74 | 18.20 | 0.99 | 18.46 | 1.00 | 11.58 | 0.63 | 16.94 | 0.92 |
All ranges | 100.00 | 1 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 | 100.00 | 1.00 |
Plot 1: DI of all groups by salary range (2021)
The dotted line represents equitable representation. It can been seen that Black employees are overrepresented at the lower salary ranges and underrepresented at higher ranges compared to the other groups. As can be seen by the “All Non-Minority Employees” bars, an equal DI across all salary ranges should be expected.
English (2021)
Français (2021)
Plot 3: A direct comparison of DI in Black Employees vs. Non-Visible Minority Employees (2021)
This plot zooms in on our “baseline” group and compares it to the Black employee group, which appears to be the most affected by inequity. A steady decrease in representation with each increase in salary range is clearly visible for the Black employee group.
English
Français
Plot 4: DI of all groups by salary range (2020-2017)
English (2020)
Français (2020)
English (2019)
Français (2019)
English (2018)
Français (2018)
English (2017)
Français (2017)
Plot 5: DI of Black Employees vs Non-Visible Minority Employees over Time
Note: Quintiles represent on 20% of each population +/- 6%.